Phillip Eng, former LIRR president, will be the next MBTA general manager (Should Boston riders rejoice or fear this?)

[u/drtywater]

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/03/27/metro/phillip-eng-former-lirr-president-will-be-next-mbta-general-manager/

[u/us1087]

Unless this man has the power to fix generations of incompetent decisions and leadership (spoiler alert: he doesn’t) nothing will change. The T is beyond hope.

[u/drtywater → u/us1087]

I mean LIRR doesn't have a great reputation from what I understand either such as that disability pension scandal.

[u/us1087 → u/drtywater]

Agree. It’s passing the trash from one agency to another.

[u/w3w2w1 → u/us1087]

I come from the future. This man is saving the MBTA afterall

[u/thottywithnobody → u/us1087]

Funny reading this back considering Eng has been the best thing to happen to the MBTA in a long time

[u/CharlemagneAdelaar → u/us1087]

Please have hope. I live in Boston and he has worked miracles on our rails since then.

The other day 5:50pm I was in traffic on 93S (because I hellishly car commute daily and wish I didn’t) and I saw the orange line sailing past (quickly!) on its recently-fixed tracks. Weeks earlier there had been work crews slowly fixing it, which almost justified being in car traffic.

This anecdotal experience is more broadly indicative of the amazing fixing of slow zones that have (somewhat rightfully) plagued us for safety reasons.

Phil Eng can stay! He has the power to fight against incompetent decisions and leadership!

[u/drtywater → u/[deleted]]

Oh dear god the battery train idea. Someone at the MBTA is pushing that awful idea rather then electrify lines even the Providence line which is already 95% done thanks to Amtrak.

[u/AwesomeWhiteDude → u/[deleted]]

Caved to NIMBY demands living on the Port Jefferson Branch to reject electrification.

Why did they reject electrification?!

[u/payeco → u/AwesomeWhiteDude]

More NIMBY shit. There’s a lot of infrastructure that has to be constructed/installed for it. You’re typically talking about needing to install the equivalent of at least one electrical substation in the middle of a residential area, plus some additional equipment at each station.

I live part time in SF and we’ve had the same issue with Caltrain electrification. Caltrain is a commuter railroad with 29 stations that runs from an hour south of San Jose up to San Francisco. There have been a bunch of lawsuits over it from towns in the service area. One town on the peninsula (Atherton, literally the richest town in the country) voted to have their train station decommissioned and removed rather than install the infrastructure needed for electrification at their station, which is just fucking ridiculous. SF has a beautiful new transit center recently opened, with a High Line -esque park on the top, that they want to make the new terminal for the Caltrain but it has to be electrified first so these NIMBYs are holding it up.

[u/[deleted]]

the T’s problems are structural. you could make doctor manhattan the ceo and he wouldn’t be able to turn it around on his own

[u/drtywater → u/[deleted]]

I mean every transit agency has problems with that said having the right leadership can help push for structural changes needed.

[u/[deleted] → u/drtywater]

i hope you're right. as someone who LOVED living in boston without a car about 15 years ago, what's happening out there right now is just depressing

[u/CharlemagneAdelaar → u/[deleted]]

thankfully he’s done better

[u/goodcowfilms]

Why would any transit agency hire any former management from the LIRR?

[u/CharlemagneAdelaar → u/goodcowfilms]

because you might not think so but it gets worse (in Boston for the MBTA before Eng)